“I’m calling for help,” Travis said as he picked up the phone and dialed.
7.
“Come on,” Deirdre Falling Hawk muttered as the train rattled to a stop at the Green Park station.
The doors lurched open, and she squeezed through the moment the opening was wide enough. “Mind the gap,” droned a recorded voice, but she had already leaped onto the platform, breaking into a run as her boots hit the tiles. Travis hadn’t said why he wanted her to come over, but there had been something in his voice–a sharpness–that made her heart quicken. Besides, Travis and Beltan hadn’t invited her or any other Seeker to their flat in the three years since they had come to London. Something told her this wasn’t an invitation for a drink and casual conversation.
She gripped the yellowed bear claw that hung at her throat as she pounded up the steps and into the balmy night. A man wearing a grimy white sheet stood next to the entrance of the Tube station, holding a cardboard sign, a blank look on his face. The sign read, in neatly printed letters, You Will Be Eaten.
“Are you ready for the Mouth?” he said as she passed him, the words accompanied by a puff of sour breath.
Deirdre ignored him–the Mouthers were everywhere in the city these days–and darted across Piccadilly Street. She had never been to Travis and Beltan’s flat, but she knew exactly where it was. The Seekers had a penchant for keeping tabs on otherworldly travelers. Even those whose cases were closed.
Except the case would never really be closed, whether the Seekers were actively investigating it or not. And it wasn’t just because of the phone call from Travis that Deirdre ran headlong down the sidewalk, daring other pedestrians to get in her way.
Just before the phone rang, she had been sitting at the dining table in her flat, working on her laptop computer, doing some cross‑indexing between two databases. It was tedious work, but necessary as well. The kind of work she’d been doing a lot of lately.
Not that she wouldn’t rather have been investigating rumors of unexplainable energy signatures or artifacts of unknown origin, journeying to exotic locations, poring over lost manuscripts, or decoding hieroglyphics. However, if there were any otherworldly forces lurking out there, waiting to be discovered, then they were studiously avoiding her, because she hadn’t worked on an interesting case in over a year, and the last several leads of any promise she had found had all run into dead ends.
Eyes aching from staring at the computer, Deirdre had just decided to call it a night when the machine chimed. On screen, a message appeared.
Do be sure to take this call.
That was all. There was no indication of the sender, no box in which she could type a reply. She was still staring at the message when the phone rang, causing her to jump out of her seat.
If the call had come a minute before, she would have been tempted to let the answering machine get it, to soak in a bath before going to bed. After all, what could be so important she couldn’t deal with it tomorrow? Deirdre didn’t know, but the message on the computer screen changed everything. She lunged for the phone, unsure who it would be on the other end, though somehow not surprised when it was Travis Wilder.
“Deirdre, I’m so glad you’re home,” he had said, his words clipped. “Can you . . . can you come over right away?”
“Of course,” she had said. “I’ll be there in half an hour.” She hung up and glanced at the computer. The message was gone, but she knew now who had sent it.
It was he. There was no other possibility, even though he hadn’t contacted her in over three years. The last time had been just a few weeks after the events in Denver, when the Steel Cathedral was destroyed, and the truth about Duratek’s involvement in the illegal trade of the drug Electria was revealed. After that, for a time, she had hoped. Every phone call, every e‑mail message, had caused a jolt of excitement.
Only they were never from him. Whoever the mysterious Philosopher was who had helped her in the past, he had fallen silent. But hadn’t he said it would be like that? It may be some time until we speak again, he had told her at the end of their first and only telephone conversation. But when the time comes, I’ll be in touch.
That time was now. Yet what did it mean? Something had happened–something had changed–but what?
You know what it is, Deirdre. Perihelion is coming. Earth and Eldh are drawing near. That’s what he told you three years ago. Maybe it’s close now. Maybe that’s why everything is changing. . . .
She turned down a deserted side street, half jogged the last block to their building, and started up the steps. Just as she reached the door, the short hairs on the back of her neck stood up. Again she gripped her bear claw necklace–a gift from her shaman grandfather–and turned around.
The black silhouette of a figure stood on the edge of a circle of light cast by a streetlamp. A thrill of dread and wonder sizzled through Deirdre. Was it him? Surely he was keeping watch on Beltan and Travis. How else would he have known Travis was about to call her?
The figure reached out a beckoning hand. As if compelled by a will not her own, she started back down the steps.
“Deirdre!” a voice called from above. “Up here.”
She turned and looked up. Beltan leaned out of a window two floors above her.
“I’ll let you in,” the blond man said, then his head ducked inside. A second later the building’s front door buzzed, and the lock clicked.
Deirdre glanced over her shoulder, but the circle of light across the street was empty. She pulled on the door before the buzzing stopped, then bounded up two flights of stairs. The door of their flat opened before she could knock on it, and she was hauled inside by strong hands.
“It’s been too long since we’ve seen you,” Beltan said as he lifted her off the floor in an embrace.
“So you’re going to crush me as punishment?” she managed to squeak.
Beltan set her down and straightened her leather jacket. “Sorry. For me, hugs only come in one strength.”
“That would be maximum,” she said, returning his grin. However, her smile vanished as she caught Travis’s troubled gray eyes. He moved forward and laid a hand on her shoulder.
“Thank you for coming.”
“I’ll always come when you call, no matter how long it’s been or how far away you are. But what’s going on? And why couldn’t you tell me over the phone?”
He stepped aside. The first thing she noticed was the broadsword hanging above the sofa; that had to be Beltan’s. Then her gaze moved down, and she saw the woman sitting there. The woman stood, stretching limbs clad in supple black leather.
“Oh,” Deirdre said, and would have fallen to the floor if not for Beltan’s strong hands.
They set her on the sofa, propped her up with a pillow, and pressed a glass of porter into her hand. A few sips of beer revived her enough that she was able to tell them she was fine, though she wasn’t certain that was really the case.
For the last three years, Deirdre had done her best not to think about them. The Seekers had officially closed the Wilder‑Beckett case. The gate to the world AU‑3–to Eldh–had been destroyed, and Duratek Corporation had been destroyed as well. The company had been dismantled by the governments of Earth; its executives were in jail or, in many cases, dead. There would be other investigations, maybe even other worlds. But the door to this one had been shut. It was over.